The Guardian - safety app with a difference

Cape Town - Recent incidents of violent crime in the city have prompted three UCT graduates to create a safety device which will allow wearers to send out an alert with their location if they are in danger.

Rowan Spazzoli, Louis Buys and Tsakane Ngoepe are a team called AllSafe, who conceptualised The Guardian – a wrist band linked to a cellphone via bluetooth.

Buys said the news of the murder of teenager Franziska Blöchliger near Tokai Forest and an e-mail the following day about a rape near Rhodes Memorial sparked the idea.

“We wanted people to feel safer in their daily life.”

He said the wrist band has a single button, which the users would have to press when in danger. Through the Guardian mobile app on the wearers’ smartphone, contact would be made with the AllSafe system and provide their location.

The system would also notify security companies and the police as well as other users of the application in the vicinity of the user.

According to AllSafe, existing emergency alert applications allowed users to notify a predefined group of contacts when the user was in danger – but these contacts were usually not in a position to act on the alert.

The Guardian would be able to decide who to alert based on the user’s location and the time of day.

Buys said the aim was not for the other app users to intervene, unless they could do so safely, but to inform them to be vigilant.

The plan was to have the prototype ready in the next week and to launch the device in June.

“We are hoping to be very inclusive and are aiming for the lowest price possible for the device. We believe it can help to make a difference to the situation in Cape Town and in South Africa.”

The team has started a crowdfunding campaign on Thundafund.

More details can be found at allsafe.co.za.

ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za

Cape Argus